Hacker News Reader

Comment by kragen | Hacker News Reader

It is really not okay that this publication is equating "hacking" with crime and breaking security. It's a form of bigotry that's going to send a lot of innocent people to prison, or worse, because they do things like post on a site called "Hacker News".

Imagine if they had entitled an article, "Is Science the Next Threat to Our Food Supply?" when reporting on a pesticide disaster, then in the body of the article described how "scientists sprayed pesticides on a farm, poisoning hundreds of people who ate the food." Or, "Is Freethinking the Next Threat to Our Children?" describing how "freethinkers employed children to work in their factories, maiming many of them."

Mark my words. If you're reading this, you're a target of this hatemongering. Friends of mine have already died as a result of it.

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I think the word "hacking" has been used to describe computer crime for a while now. Too bad for the other kinds of hackers I guess!

It isn't that clear to me that the "breaking into computer systems" definition even initially started out separate from the building things definition. My impression from what I've read, is that there was one hacker community with some members interested in breaking into systems for some harmless fun and others more interested in other aspects. Over time, the breaking into systems folks became increasingly less harmless and drifted away from the rest of the community

Breaking into computer systems certainly can be "a playful use of the intellect" or "a feat the world experts in a field thought to be impossible", so it certainly can be hacking. Designing pesticides can be science, too (my second example), and certainly nothing prevents freethinkers from employing child labor (my third example)—there might even be a causal link if the local Church is prohibiting child labor. And if you're brewing up some pesticides, you might look up to scientists and think you're a scientist, even if you're really not.

But hopefully you can see that it would be appalling to write an article entitled "Is Science the Next Threat to Our Food Supply?" about a pesticide disaster, saying, "Scientists sprayed pesticides on a farm, poisoning hundreds of people who ate the food;" and that this article isn't talking about anything you or I would recognize as "hacking" or "hackers". At the point where you're extorting ransom there's nothing playful about it anymore, and it's very likely that the vulnerabilities being exploited were already known.

By virtue of self-identifying as "a hacker", or at least a would-be hacker, you are getting into the line of fire. So you should stand up against it.

Those aren't the only definitions of hacking. "Breaking into computer systems" is also a definition of hacking, and it has been for decades. That isn't because of some deliberate slight against other sorts of hackers, but rather because initially there wasn't a distinction the different kinds of hackers: they were all members of the same community. The fact that the computer criminal element that forked off the wider hacker community ended up getting the most attention is certainly unfortunate, but I don't see why it should be interpreted as an attack against the others.

Yes, it's true that people have used the word in a derogatory sense for decades. It should be interpreted as an attack against us because in fact it hurts us, whatever the intent: by repurposing our terms of praise into a term representing people's darkest nightmares about those who know things they don't, they encourage people to confuse us with those nightmares. How often do you think kids get punished in school for browsing this very website?

Changing a definition of a word is a big ask. As wbazant wrote, hacking has originally started as describing computer crime. The scales for what was considered computer crime has shifted quite a bit in addition to the term itself expanding. Many of us deal with this by inferring what is meant by context.

I've been surrounded by hackers, and none of them caught legal or social flack for being called a hacker in public. I also don't see people getting turned off from doing computer security or other computer work because of hacking being used to describe computer crime.

>As wbazant wrote, hacking has originally started as describing computer crime.

no they said it has been used for a while now, not was originally used. The problem is that both uses have existed concurrently and it can be annoying to people who believe themselves to be a member of the non-criminal set of hackers. It can also be annoying when you can't tell from context what it should mean, I guess being on HN I kept thinking - but it should be "Is Agriculture the next struggle for Hacking?" because I didn't think the criminal usage would prevail here.

Many Jewish people in Hungary, Germany, and Poland could say the same in 01880 and even in 01920: "I've been surrounded by Jews, and none of them caught legal or social flack for being called a Jew in public." Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'm not clear what "hacking has originally started as describing computer crime" is supposed to mean, but "hacking" in the sense of "finding clever ways to surpass what was thought to be possible" goes back to the 01960s, while its "computer crime" meaning was created by journalists and then Hollywood in the 01980s, after Steven Levy's book "Hackers". They did this because they despised and distrusted the kind of people described in the book, us, and projected their greatest fears about computers onto us.

It's not impossible to get people to stop using a group identity term in a derogatory sense. "Gay" is, perhaps, commonly used in US high schools to mean "contemptible", and "jew" in some parts of the US is still used to mean "negotiate an unfair business deal", but no US newspaper would dare to use either term that way today.

If we value our lives, we need to force them to treat "hacker" in the same way.

It's been a while since I've seen Godwin's law in the wild.

Why'd you put a leading 0 on every year?

Probably related to https://longnow.org/

Hmm, that still seems like a silly practice. The custom today isn't 4 digit years anyway; it's whatever number of digits you need and no more. For example, we say Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, not AD 0079. We'll naturally switch to 5-digit years in the year 10000 that way without needing to put a leading 0 on every year in the meantime. And 5 digits seems arbitrary anyway: what happens in the year 100000?

> what happens in the year 100000

We'll think about it when we get there :)

breaking into systems folks became increasingly less harmless and drifted away

The criminal types were never part of the hacker community. Someone who sends spam or deploys ransomware is motivated by profit, not curiosity or playfulness.

There are still plenty of breaking into systems people in the hacker community. They work in cryptanalysis, security research, penetration testing, etc. You can find them at their traditional conferences such as Defcon, Blackhat, and Chaos Communication Congress.

The website you are posting this on is called "hacker news", which as far as I can tell does not refer to the computer crime meaning. So when posting on HN clarifying what you mean by that word seems very reasonable.

Context. Sometimes requires reading more than title (which on HN is supposed to be verbatim). I do get the agitation. I have it as well with 'crypto'. But we need to acknowledge trends/hypes influence our language.

Friends of yours have died because the word "hacking" has multiple meanings? That's a pretty bold claim. Care to share any details about these deaths?

No, because people hate and fear hackers, because they are confused; the derogatory usage of the term "hacker" propagates that confusion and fear, but it is not the only cause of it. Here's the clearest-cut case of a friend of mine who died for that reason: https://archive.org/details/TheInternetsOwnBoyTheStoryOfAaro...

There are a couple of other cases, but they are less clear-cut. Nobody made documentaries about them. Many more are likely on the way.

Tbf, I learned "hacking" as the word for illegal (cyber) activity long before I've seen it used for "hacking stuff together".

  Tbf, I learned "hacking" as the word for illegal (cyber) activity long before I've seen it used for "hacking stuff together".

How long have you been privy to Internet or programmer culture? 'Hacker' as a positive term has been around a lot longer than 'hacker' as a pejorative one.

Back in the '80s, a hacker utilised technology to interesting ends. A cracker (akin to a safe-cracker) broke into things and did damage.

As but one datum point, Steven Levy's book Hackers came out in 1984:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers:_Heroes_of_the_Compute...

EDIT: Typo.

Language changes. It's the 2020s not 1980s.

Wait until you learn how people use the word "phone" now to describe a small general purpose computer.

  Language changes. It's the 2020s not 1980s.

Language may change, but language changes which cause 'damage' need to be resisted.

There's too much that's positively aligned with the word 'hacker' to let those who without clue ruin the word for everyone else.

I would say it's more worth your time to adapt to the change and use the new lingo.

For example I see the term "ethical hacker" used quite often, especially for security professionals, and it's held in high esteem.

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